Pete's Programme (Single Digit to Tour Player)

[Nosevi]

This could be a bit of a long post but it's kind of difficult to condense it. Could entitle it NOT the Dan Plan....

I've been reading this thread for a while as I've got a bit of a personal interest in it (and I'll never get through to Richard Chen on Dan's blog so may as well quit trying....). My personal interest is I'm doing something pretty similar to Dan, similar but with some pretty big differences.

Unbeknown to either of us both Dan and I decided that we'd quite like to be tour pros - PGA Tour for Dan, realistically initially Europro for me which is a 3rd tier tour over here in the UK, if I'm good enough maybe press for the Challenge Tour, one down from the European Tour. The first major difference was I decided I wasn't in a position to do it properly right off so spent 2 years planning and getting everything in place including the finances to be able to commit to it fully ie an income so no clock was ticking. I had only just taken up golf and was your average 'hacker' straight off playing to about 18-20.

Having seen several pros for one off lessons to see who I wanted to work with I eventually went to see the head pro at our national academy with my idea that I wanted to get really good at golf and we hit it off straight away. Not only do we see eye to eye on many things, he also coaches some very good players - we're talking guys off plus 4 (about plus 5 or a tad lower to you guys in the States) as well as a few guys on tour at the level I want to achieve. We worked together for a little under a year while I was still working to give me a basis in the game and I got my initial handicap of 5.5 which was capped at that level by our national golf union, should have been just under 4 (again, maybe a 3 to you or just below). Then 3 things happened - I quit work to do this full time, I shot par in my first competition dropping my handicap to 5.1 (only competiton rounds count towards handicap here) and a week later I tore my achilles and was told I needed to take up to 9 months off golf.

I was gutted.

Durring that time though I cracked on and put the other things I wanted in place:

- I sought out someone over here who has actually done this - who had been a 'normal' golfer and turned pro later in life. He actually went from 7 handicap to tour pro in 2 years, couple of years to the Challenge tour, couple more to the European Tour and won on the European Tour last year. He gave some great advice. There's loads of books written about the theory of doing this sort of thing, I wanted to talk to someone who had actually done it.

- UK weather is not the best and I needed every advantage as I tried to imrove so I built a custom 'garage' next to my house. Garage is in inverted comas as it's heated and decorated etc. does have a car in it though. The important bit was I had 12 foot high ceilings built in so I could fit a full indoor golf sim downstairs. I use a Flightscope at the Academy where I get lessons but prefer the GC2 for game improvement so that's what runs the sim.

- I made a deal with one of my clubs (I'm a memeber of 2 as I use a small local one quite literally as a practice area - I know the owners, but also joined a tough track just down the road from me) for both unlimited free range balls as well as free short game coaching. I stick with the head pro at the Academy as my main coach and for long game but the pro at my club also coaches at Tour Pro level and short game is his thing. Besides I get that coaching for free so why not?

- I want to play at the level of the lower tours (at least to start) so also made a deal with a couple of local tour pros - they use my swing studio, we all practice together on the course, short game practice and I get to see their data on the GC2 and compare it to how I'm doing. It's impossible to really know how good you need to be........ unless you're going out and playing with people at the level you want to get to - this was an important part of the 'plan'. First time out doing short game competitions with one of them was a real eye opener!

- I enlisted the help of someone who understands stats. I'll leave it too him if he wants to say who he is but he's a regular on this site. He's opened my eyes to strokes gained, stat tracking etc and I send him all sorts of data to sift through from on course putting performance to data from the launch monitor. This was also essential in order to target set and assess progress towards those targets.

The full programme started in September when my Achilles had healed and it's going pretty well. I'm not on a totally different planet to the tour pros on the launch monitor and my short game is coming together but guessing this will take time. There's loads of what I've learnt is called 'deliberate practice' - drills, repetition, launch monitor sessions for hours and here's an example of the results. This is a 20 ball set shot last week, all shots within about 15 feet of the pin. Anyone who knows the GC2 system will know this is consecutive shots due to the numbering - delete a shot and a number is missing. Because of the way the sim works my target is always about 3 or 4 yards left of the centre line....

Deliberate practice does work but takes a while to do and you need the right sort of coaching to get the most out of it.

I could bore you all with data sets and ball flight pictures (I have hundreds, my 10 shots sets are quite a bit tighter than that) but there's little point. The point I wanted to make is, given the right coaching, the right kit, the right help and possibly the right motivation you can make this work. My motivation is I want to play on tour and I'm actually working pretty hard at it (day starts at 0530 with phys and normally ends at maybe 1900...... with phys. And there's a fair amount of golf between the two). Sorry but I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence by trying to claim I'm doing this for others because it simply isn't true. I'm currently chatting to the National Academy about helping them out with the kids coaching days for free but essentially this isn't some grand experiment. No media (if I can help it), no blogs just a lot of hard work.

I've been in touch with Dan on numerous occasions, shown him what I'm doing, tried to persuade him to get a good coach, suggested we trade ideas to (let's face it) get him back on track, but it's just not been sinking in. He's testing a theory and he'll follow what he thinks that theory is to the death even when he must be faced with data showing him it's not currently working. I'm not testing a theory, when things stop working I'll change things until they do.

Right I'll now sit back and wait for Shorty to tell me I don't stand a chance :) and this sort of thing simply isn't doable, and he may be right (other than from the guy I mentioned above who actually did it). But I'm going to give it a crack anyway. If I fail miserably (and I might) it'll simply be due to a lack of tallent but it won't be because of lack of effort, planning or frankly an inability to grasp just how tough this is to do.

[Lihu]

I've been reading this thread for a while as I've got a bit of a personal interest in it (and I'll never get through to Richard Chen on Dan's blog so may as well quit trying....). My personal interest is I'm doing something pretty similar to Dan, similar but with some pretty big differences.

Deliberate practice does work but takes a while to do and you need the right sort of coaching to get the most out of it.

Welcome back, Pete!

Those look like really good numbers for the dispersion at 140 yards!

[Nosevi]

One thing I forgot to say - even though it's effectively my first year after getting my initial handicap I'll be representing one of my clubs this coming season. Essentially match play competitions against other clubs. It's early days but my coach was adamant that I get out there and compete as soon as possible. Being matchplay it won't count towards my handicap but that's not really the point - I'll be playing quite a few weekends over the summer and am looking forward to getting out there. Love matchplay as I'm just a tad competitative :)

[Lihu]

One thing I forgot to say - even though it's effectively my first year after getting my initial handicap I'll be representing one of my clubs this coming season. Essentially match play competitions against other clubs. It's early days but my coach was adamant that I get out there and compete as soon as possible. Being matchplay it won't count towards my handicap but that's not really the point - I'll be playing quite a few weekends over the summer and am looking forward to getting out there. Love matchplay as I'm just a tad competitative :)

You should start a new thread "The Pete Plan".

It would be fun to track your progress and such. . .

[Nosevi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nosevi

I've been reading this thread for a while as I've got a bit of a personal interest in it (and I'll never get through to Richard Chen on Dan's blog so may as well quit trying....). My personal interest is I'm doing something pretty similar to Dan, similar but with some pretty big differences.

Deliberate practice does work but takes a while to do and you need the right sort of coaching to get the most out of it.

Welcome back, Pete!

Those look like really good numbers for the dispersion at 140 yards!

Thanks, good to see you. It's a 20 ball set so yep, I have to say I'm chuffed with how it's going. A lot of work but it pays off if you do the right drills and focus your practice on the right areas. To give it perspective these are a few 10 ball then 5 ball sets. When I set out to hit a draw I colour code it red, if it's supposed to be a fade I colour it green. The blue set was just some data I sent to the guy doing my stats - 5 shots, biggest lateral dispertion of 0.5 yards so he worked out the club face 'accuracy' was down at 0.2 degrees. Pretty mad what the human body can do if you train it. As I said, all sets are aimed just left of the centreline:

The point I'm trying to make is that what people call deliberate practice does work....... but you have to know what to practice and how to do it. We look at everything from how you mind processes information to biomechanics in order to get this stuff to work, it doesn't happen by accident.

[Nosevi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nosevi

One thing I forgot to say - even though it's effectively my first year after getting my initial handicap I'll be representing one of my clubs this coming season. Essentially match play competitions against other clubs. It's early days but my coach was adamant that I get out there and compete as soon as possible. Being matchplay it won't count towards my handicap but that's not really the point - I'll be playing quite a few weekends over the summer and am looking forward to getting out there. Love matchplay as I'm just a tad competitative :)

You should start a new thread "The Pete Plan".

It would be fun to track your progress and such. . .

Tempting but I'll pass :)  You guys will have to make do with Dan's plan (I at least think......or is that hope there is one........)

[Shorty]

Right I'll now sit back and wait for Shorty to tell me I don't stand a chance :)

The only people who I say don't stand a chance are those who have no plan or have clearly no idea of what professional golfers do.

15 year olds who have just started and think it would be a cool way to make lots of money and be famous.

People who think they can "rebuild" their swing in two days and post videos hourly.

As you have said, Dan has no idea what he is doing. He has no plan at all. He has a desire and an idea of an end point but there is no process.

I also get frustrated with threads like "How long before you broke 80"  because 79 on some courses is 95 on another.

Good luck with your golf. :-)

[Nosevi]

Good luck with your golf. :-)

Thanks. Maybe I'll check back and give an idea of how it's going at some point.

I guess in all this I wanted to say that what Dan is trying to do (and what I'm trying to do) is possible however unlikely. But playing a bit of golf for a few years isn't going to cut it. To stand any chance I think you need a bit of natural ability (a lot is required if you're shooting at the PGA Tour), one hell of a work ethic and you need to put everything in place that will help you. THEN you may stand a slim chance of pulling it off. Do it for the media and cameras and you haven't got a hope IMO - hence no blog :)

[Nosevi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shorty

The only people who I say don't stand a chance are those who have no plan or have clearly no idea of what professional golfers do.

15 year olds who have just started and think it would be a cool way to make lots of money and be famous.

People who think they can "rebuild" their swing in two days and post videos hourly.

As you have said, Dan has no idea what he is doing. He has no plan at all. He has a desire and an idea of an end point but there is no process.

Just going back to this, Shorty, I think that's the difference between my 'plan' and Dan's. I knew I had no idea what Tour Pros do or play like so made sure I could find out by practicing with them. As for the process my programme is broken down into trimesters with assessment weeks, target stats, improvement trends....... We look at how every area is going and focus the training to achieve set goals. We use launch monitors, high speed cameras data analysis.... Essentially it's a plan not just an vague idea.

[RandallT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nosevi

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shorty

The only people who I say don't stand a chance are those who have no plan or have clearly no idea of what professional golfers do.

15 year olds who have just started and think it would be a cool way to make lots of money and be famous.

People who think they can "rebuild" their swing in two days and post videos hourly.

As you have said, Dan has no idea what he is doing. He has no plan at all. He has a desire and an idea of an end point but there is no process.

Just going back to this, Shorty, I think that's the difference between my 'plan' and Dan's. I knew I had no idea what Tour Pros do or play like so made sure I could find out by practicing with them. As for the process my programme is broken down into trimesters with assessment weeks, target stats, improvement trends....... We look at how every area is going and focus the training to achieve set goals. We use launch monitors, high speed cameras data analysis.... Essentially it's a plan not just an vague idea.

I am not comfortable with people having plans that are not published in detail on the internet! How do you expect geeky trolls like me with too much time on their hands to create charts of the score trends?! That's just not right.

Welcome back to TST, nosevi. I enjoyed the banter you had with Mr Chen in the comment section of TDP. I noticed you referred to the charts of Dan's progress here, so I wonder if he has checked them for accuracy. I believe he moderates all comments, so he must've been curious what you were referring to. Or maybe not

[Nosevi]

I am not comfortable with people having plans that are not published in detail on the internet! How do you expect geeky trolls like me with too much time on their hands to create charts of the score trends?! That's just not right.

Welcome back to TST, nosevi. I enjoyed the banter you had with Mr Chen in the comment section of TDP. I noticed you referred to the charts of Dan's progress here, so I wonder if he has checked them for accuracy. I believe he moderates all comments, so he must've been curious what you were referring to. Or maybe not

Hi there. I think I was a trusted poster - my comments went on Dan's blog straight away rather than be moderated. I don't really bear the guy any 'ill will' it's just that I don't fully 'get' what he's trying to achieve any more. In the unlikely event that he fails what does that prove? Not a great deal - there seems to be no structure to his 'plan', very little what you would call deliberate practice and he's continuing to do something that isn't working. If he fails it proves only that he didn't make it but if he fails we'll know that anyway. If he were to succeed it wouldn't really 'prove' anything either and it would pass on even less - who here can tell me what the guy is actually doing?

When you read something on the blog like - "I practiced chipping for an hour." it tells you nothing - did you get better? how did you perform? what were your targets? did you hit them? how did you hit them? if you didn't hit them what's your plan now?

I'm being up front - I'm not going to blog everything because frankly I don't have the time. I could blog some things but then it'd be me cherry picking what I wanted people to see which is pointless.

My aim in coming on this thread was to say that pretty rapid progress is possible and 'deliberate practice' is a big part of that. But you have to actually do deliberate practice not just write about it, you have to be performance focussed not just deal in generalities and optimism, you have to work really hard towards your goal of improving not be caught up in the media side of things or just try to look like you're improving - if that's your aim you don't really have to work hard, do you?

As far as charts and score trends are concerned, I'm confident you'll find a way :)

p.s. Richard Chen - nice enough fellow but the sort of guy that if you met him at a cocktail party you'd introduce him to someone you didn't like then suddenly find somewhere else you had to be......

[Lihu]

My aim in coming on this thread was to say that pretty rapid progress is possible and 'deliberate practice' is a big part of that. But you have to actually do deliberate practice not just write about it, you have to be performance focused not just deal in generalities and optimism, you have to work really hard towards your goal of improving not be caught up in the media side of things or just try to look like you're improving - if that's your aim you don't really have to work hard, do you?

The definition of "Rapid progress" is different for everyone, and everyone has different goals.

Most of us on this site know that progress is possible and measurable using 5SK and LSW, but it is nice to read about individual goals and achievements. I know I enjoy reading about other peoples golfing exploits.

This is part of what makes this site so appealing. So, posting a daily diary is not really all that time consuming. You can simply write what you did. Why you did it is a bonus, and how is a huge bonus.

[Nosevi]

The definition of "Rapid progress" is different for everyone, and everyone has different goals.

Most of us on this site know that progress is possible and measurable using 5SK and LSW, but it is nice to read about individual goals and achievements. I know I enjoy reading about other peoples golfing exploits.

This is part of what makes this site so appealing. So, posting a daily diary is not really all that time consuming. You can simply write what you did. Why you did it is a bonus, and how is a huge bonus.

I'll say I'll think about it if that's ok. I've seen how getting wrapped up in the whole blogging side of things has been unhelpful to Dan (at least in working towards his stated goal) and wouldn't want to make what I see as the same mistakes.

I can give you todays diary in short though - 2 hours of phys, 27 holes of golf, chipping and putting practice ......... and way too much time on a golfing forum :)

Late here so that's me done :)

[iacas]

I moved these to a new thread. Even if you, @Nosevi , do not see updating this thread anywhere near as often as Dan updates his blog, it still deserves its own thread.

The title can be whatever you want. The one I chose is temporary.

[Nosevi]

I moved these to a new thread. Even if you, @Nosevi, do not see updating this thread anywhere near as often as Dan updates his blog, it still deserves its own thread.

The title can be whatever you want. The one I chose is temporary.

Thanks @iacas

[Nosevi]

I've had a bit of a think about Lihu's request for a little more info and, as long as it's understood that I don't intend to 'blog' everything I do, there's probably no harm in it and perhaps from the odd snippet of information guys might gain something. One reason I don't want to blog and report every move I make is that I'm a pretty private person but I've also seen other 'plans' come unstuck as the blog and will to outwardly demonstrate progress or success eventually overtakes the programme itself and becomes more important than actually making progress or success. I'm sure many will know where I'm coming from.

Ok, that said I'll try to bring you up to date a tad with where I am but before I do I'll just say 2 things.

Firstly some of the stats I'll show 'flatter' me a tad - I've made really good progress but I'm not quite as good as some of them make me seem. One of the courses I play is a very easy track but I have unlimited access to it and can practice on it, hence I use it. That said it's short but tight and requires a bit of thought and a variety of shots to 'go low' so it's not a bad place to practice. My other home course is much harder, a USGA Scratch would be expected to go round it in about 3 over on a good day from the back tees (according to the Standard Scratch Score which is basically what we call a Course Rating). It's not massively long but you have to be able to draw and fade the ball, the rough is seriously punishing and it's pretty tight in places.

The second thing is that with our handicapping system her in the UK the numbers given to a golfer of a certain ability are slightly different than in the US, it's just a function of how the handicap is calculated. Personally I far prefer the US system as it shows how good the golfer is right now, ours is a rolling correction so if like me you're improving your handicap is often quite a bit higher than your ability. At Category 1 level (which I' at) here you aren't allowed to enter any score shot socially, only competion rounds count towards handicap. Every round counts - shoot over handicap by a single shot and your handicap goes up by 0.1 every time. Put these 2 factors together and if a guy shoots the same on average in competitions as he does in social rounds, there is a 1.0 difference in handicaps from the USGA system to ours. In reality most people don't quite shoot as well in competition as they do when out with their buddies which accounts for about another 1 shot difference between the systems. It works out pretty closely to a 2 shot difference as most people in the States average about 4 shots under their handicap where as in the UK our National Union tell us it should be 2 shots under our system. What all if this means is that my 5.1 congu hadicap is probably round about 3.1 under the USGA system....... give or take.

But then I come onto why I think our system is daft and can't wait till we addopt the US system (something that's happening slowly as Course Ratings and Slopes are being phased in now). Looking at some of my recent stats (remebering some are shot on an easier track, some on a harder) this is haw it currently rates me:

OK, need to work on the putting :) And scoring:

Although this is an upwards trend and my last 5 rounds it a bit better:

So, according to our system I'm a "phenominal" 5 handicapper who averages 2 or 3 over par.......... or alternatively our system is utterly incapable of dealing with a rapidly improving golfer. In fact, under our system my club can't even alter my handicap even if they know it's wrong as I'm Category 1. In order to get to scratch from my current handicap of 5.1 I need to go and shoot 'scratch rounds (ie on the course rating) 25 times, all of which have to be in strokeplay competitions and for every round I shoot over handicap I'd need to shoot another scratch round. Anyway, mini rant over but suffice to say I'm not a major fan of a handicapping system that fails to indicate how good you currently are at golf.

[Nosevi]

Right with that out of the way a little about where I am now.

My initial thoughts were pretty much the opposite to another plan that is covered pretty well on this site. While it's undoubtable that you need a very good short game to have a hope of getting to where I want to go, if you can't keep the ball in play off the tee, and keep it in play far enough down the course to be going into the green with a sensible iron, then this 'venture' is doomed to failure from the off. I've been told by many, including my Dad, that it's not all about distance. That's true but I'm not aiming to play on your average courses and if after every other drive on a halfway decent lengthed par 4 I'm forced to pull out a 3 wood, I wouldn't stand a hope. If you can't get the ball out there then the courses the pros play are frankly beyond you. Harsh, but that's the way the modern game is played.

With this in mind much of my early gym work was looking at core stability and rotational power. In a nutshell I had neither. We put me throught the same biomechanical screening and tests that our Elite squads get (ie our National team) and the results were pitiful - I had a lot of work to do. That was just over a year ago and my good drives carried a pretty unrespectable 240ish. We've worked on technique and I've put in a tonne of effort in the gym and these are more like my good strikes now. These aren't average I'll hasten to add but what I get on a 'good un' and are obviously still air numbers.

I see everything as a slight draw if I can so my drives mirror what I try to do with my irons. Below are just a couple of screen shots to give the numbers (club head speed isn't measured, it's espimated so only ball speed is accurate)

That was really hurdle number one and if I couldn't get over that then there was no point at all in pursuing this. A maximum of 250 - 260 yards total off the tee may impress my playing partners on a Sunday afternoon stroll at my local club but is a world away from where I needed to be. I put in the effort, I got the results I needed.

[Nosevi]

The next step was trying to get some sort of accuracy with my irons. While my coach deals with tweaking my swing and keeping everything moving in the right direction as I do my best to mess it up, there's one thing you can't really get round - the ball flight shape is predominantly a function of the face angle at impact and the swing path. Yes other things come into it but these are the 'biggies'. Get those 2 right and playing bad golf is pretty tough to do.

The best way to describe the process I've been through is my coach deals with the swing path, I get the club face square. That's an over simplification but it's pretty much what we've done. While he uses high speed cameras etc to make sure I'm more or less doing what I should be doing in order to give me a hope of hitiing good golf shots, I have one job - get the club face square at impact.

When using a GC2 (or pretty much any other half way decent launch monitor) it tells you the horizontal launch and side spin on the ball. Whith a little knowledge of ball flight laws, given this info, you can work out where the club face was at impact and more importantly what you need to change in order to get the ball flight you need. Starting small and building up to a full swing I've spent hours on the launch monitor just 'playing' with ball flight, getting a feel of how to change it and what different shots feel like. How long? at a guess I'd say 200-250 hours in the last few months just working on this aspect. The results are what you can see above in the thread.

I didn't know what it was called but I guess it's refered to as 'deliberate practice' - repetition and focussed attention on one aspect in order to (as close as I can) perfect it.